If you are only building one small plane like a Hots then you can't save any money, the price of the plans and wood with shipping comes out to about the same price as the kit used to be. If on the other hand you are a plans or scratch builder then you always place wood orders and buy a lot more wood then you need and it becomes a stock pile. I'm building right now using my stock pile and have plenty of it, left overs from bigger planes I have built. If you are going to build bigger planes then you save a bunch. The cost of wood and covering is a lot cheaper then an ARF of the same size and you will get a much stronger plane out of the deal. You will loose a lot of months worth of time though. Now that Lone Star is back in operation I will start a new stock pile of wood. I only bother scratch building these days when there is no kit of the planes I want or if the plane is something that was never kitted.